Managing Our Firm, One Lawyer at a Time

A Presentation to a Firm

You are great lawyers. In order to be so, you must have a number of propensities: to be ferociously independent, critical and analytical and even tense sometimes. I will not ask you to give up those propensities in the context of your substantive practice.

Because we are now a firm of some size we need to capitalize upon the things we can achieve together that we cannot achieve alone. The rewards for doing so will be to gain a competitive advantage. The punishment for not doing so will be to fade into mediocrity, perhaps even oblivion.

Therefore, the behavioral propensities you bring to your substantive work should continue but I am asking that you change your interactions with the firm in relation to its management. We cannot afford to debate every paper clip any longer.

If John F. Kennedy were a Managing Partner, he might have said, “Ask not what your firm can do for you but what you can do for your firm.”